Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T04:25:19.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Paraguayan Rosetta Stone: New Insights into the Demographics of the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Thomas L. Whigham  and
Barbara Potthast
Thomas L. Whigham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Barbara Potthast
Affiliation:
University of Bielefeld
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The demographics of the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) have long fascinated historicans and sociologists. If the oft-repeated tales of a 70 percent loss of life in Paraguay are accurate, then this war represents a singular case in modern history, one full of implications for students of militarism, gender, and culture. This study analyzes a newly discovered census from 1870 and reworks earlier censal materials. The authors conclude that the old stories of a steep loss of population during the war are basically correct.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , 1999 , pp. 174 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

We wish to thank Major Hugo Mendoza, who discovered the census in the first place, and also Marta Fernández W. and Jerry W. Cooney, who went to the archive of the Ministerio de Defensa Nacional on our behalf, viewed the documents, and arranged for us to receive complete copies.

References

Beringer, Richard E., Hattaway, Herman, Jones, Archer, and Still, William N. JR. 1986 Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Kegler De Galeano, Annaliese 1976 “Alcance histórico-demográfico del censo de 1846.” Revista Paraguaya de Sociología 13, no. 35: 71–121.Google Scholar
Maeder, Ernesto J. A. 1975 “La población del Paraguay en 1799: El censo del Gobernador Lázaro de Ribera.” Estudios Paraguayos 3, no. 1: 63–86.Google Scholar
Nickson, R. Andrew 1995 “Paraguay's Archivo del Terror.” LARR 30, no. 1 (Winter): 125–29.Google Scholar
Potthast-Jutkeit, Barbara 1996 “¿Paraíso de Mahoma” o “País de las mujeres”? El rol de la familia en la sociedad paraguaya del Siglo XIX. Asunción: Instituto Cultural Paraguayo-Alemán.Google Scholar
Potthast-Jutkeit, Barbara n.d. “Epidemia, demografía y muerte en el Paraguay, siglo XIX.” In Epidemia y muerte en Andalucía y América, edited by José Hernández Palomo and Manuel Sobrino Toro. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Reber, Vera Blinn 1988 “The Demographics of Paraguay: A Reinterpretation of the Great War, 1864–1870.” Hispanic American Historical Review 68, no. 2 (May):289–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whigham, Thomas 1995 “Paraguay's Pueblos de Indios: Echoes of a Missionary Past.” In The New Latin American Mission History, edited by Langer, Erick and Jackson, Robert H., 157–88. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Whigham, Thomas, and Potthast, Barbara 1990 “Some Strong Reservations: A Critique of Vera Blinn Reber's ‘The Demographics of Paraguay: A Reinterpretation of the Great War.‘” Hispanic American Historical Review 70, no. 4 (Nov.):667–76.Google Scholar
Williams, John Hoyt 1976 “Observations on the Paraguayan Census of 1846.” Hispanic American Historical Review 56, no. 3 (Aug.):424–37.Google Scholar